'Presumably, he's also receiving his military pension,' Brunetti
said.
That's listed, as well she answered.
Brunetti looked at the paper and saw that the sum of the Colonello's
pension plus his salary at the Academy was well in excess of his own
salary as a commissa rio 'Not bad, I'd say.'
'They struggle though, I suppose,' she observed.
The wife?'
'Rich.'
'What does he teach?'
'History and Military Theory.'
'And does he have a particular political stance that he brings to the
teaching of history?'
She smiled at the delicacy of his phrasing and answered, 'I can't
answer that yet, sir. I've got a friend whose uncle teaches
Mathematics there, and he's promised to ask him.'
'It's probably a safe guess what his ideas would be she went on, 'but
it's always best to check.'
He nodded. Neither of them had any illusions about the view of
politics and, for that fact, history likely to be held by a man who had
spent twenty-two years in the military. But, like Signorina Elettra,
Brunetti thought it would be best to be certain.
'And the two men?' he asked. 'Did they ever serve together?'
She smiled again, as if this time pleased with his perspicacity, and
pulled towards her the second pile of papers. 'It would seem that, at
the same time as the Colonello was giving his advice to the
parliamentary committee, the newly retired Maggiore was on the board of
directors of Edilan-Forma.'
'Which is?' he asked.
'A Ravenna-based company which supplies uniforms, boots and backpacks
to the military, along with other things.'
'What other things?'
'I've not been able to break into their computer yet,' she said,
clearly still in no doubt that this entire conversation was protected
by the same dispensation. 'But it looks like they supply anything
soldiers can wear or carry. It would seem, as well, that they serve as
subcontractors for companies that sell food and drink to the
military.'
'And all of this means?' Brunetti asked.
'Millions, sir, millions and millions. It's a money fountain,
or it could be. After all, the military spends about seventeen billion
Euros a year.'
'But that's insane he blurted out.
'Not for anyone who has a chance to take any of it home, it's not she
said.
'Edilan-Forma?'
'Even so she replied, and then returned to the information she had
gathered. 'At one point, the committee examined the contracts with
Edilan-Forma because one of the committee members had raised questions
about them.'
Though he barely thought it necessary, Brunetti asked, 'Moro?'
She nodded.
'What sort of questions?'
'The parliamentary minutes mention pricing for a number of items, also
the quantities ordered she said.
'And what happened?'
'When the committee member resigned, the questions were not
repeated.'
'And the contracts?'
They were all renewed.'
Was he mad, he wondered, to find this so normal and so simple to
understand? Or were they all mad, everyone in the country, in a way
that demanded the papers lying on Signorina Elettra's desk could be
read in only one way? The public purse was a grab bag, and public
spoil the supreme gift of office. Moro, stupid and transparently
